"It's early. Perhaps she's not up yet," rejoined the old detective as he painfully advanced. The storm of the preceding night had got into his bones.
"I don't know. There's something uncanny about this silence. She ought to be here; but I'm afraid she isn't." Sweetwater rapped again, this time with decided vehemence.
Suddenly in one of the uncurtained windows a face appeared. They saw it, and both drew a deep breath. The eyes were looking their way, but they were like ghost's eyes. Without sight or speculation in them, they simply looked; then the face slowly withdrew, growing ghastlier every minute, and the window stared on, but the woman was gone. Yet the door did not open.
"I hate to use force," objected Sweetwater.
Before answering, Mr. Gryce stepped to one side and cast a glance around the corner of the house in the direction of the gorge opening in the rear.
"There is something like a yard at the back," he announced, "but the fence which shut it in is so high and so protected by means of prickly underbrush that you would have difficulty in climbing it."
"Just so at this end," called out Sweetwater after a short run to the left. "If we get in at all," he remarked on coming back, "it will have to be by the window you see there with one pane knocked out."
"I don't like that; I don't like any of it. But we can't stay out here any longer. The looks of the woman herself forbid it. We sha'n't forget that hollow stare."
"They said the woman who lived here was dead."
"Yes. It's a bad business, Sweetwater. Rap once more, and then if she doesn't come, throw up the window and climb in."